Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday ruled out creating a city income tax as a way to shore up the city’s municipal and laborers’ retirement funds while describing the $250 million property tax increase he wants to pay for the pension changes as “a measured way, a responsible way to address the question.”

The mayor, however, still did not say how he would come up with an additional $600 million next year for police and fire pensions, a pressing financial issue that would not be solved by the money from the mayor’s proposed property tax hike for the other pension funds. Emanuel did not rule out seeking another property tax increase to deal with those pension funding gaps, but said “that’s not my priority.”

Emanuel scored a big win at the Capitol on Tuesday when state lawmakers quickly approved his partial pension fix, which still needs Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature. The re-election seeking governor has strongly criticized a property tax increase as the wrong way to go. The mayor said he called the governor on Wednesday morning, but the two had yet to speak as of mid-afternoon.

The mayor said he was willing to listen to other funding ideas, but then laid out his case for the property tax as part of a package that cuts benefits for retirees and increases employee contributions for around 56,000 city workers.

“I’m always open. I laid out different ideas,” Emanuel said. “But on this plan specifically, let me take you a step back. But on this plan, I said the responsible thing is to not allow a problem to continue to fester and grow from decades of delay and deferral. We owe it to our employees, to our retirees. We found a balanced and responsible approach that made our employees contribute more, and we stepped up more.”

Reminded that Quinn said Monday that a property tax hike isn’t “a good way to go” to fund the pensions, Emanuel reiterated what he says are the merits of his plan. “(Quinn) may have said that. I presented what I think -- if you’re working with your two dozen-plus unions – which is one of the reasons they came together, is because we stepped up, they stepped up,” the mayor said at a news conference at a North Side park to discuss summer programs for young people.

Emanuel was pressed on what other sources of revenue he would consider. “Other people have ideas. One that I reject is the idea of a city income tax. I think that’s not the right way to go,” he said.

Also Wednesday, the mayor was asked how residents can trust the statistics he and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy frequently bring up to underscore what they say has been their success fighting Chicago crime after Inspector General Joseph Ferguson issued a report Monday saying the Chicago Police Department underreported the number of aggravated assault and aggravated battery victims in its crime statistics in 2012 by not taking into account multiple victims in single incidents.

Emanuel said the crime statistic reporting problem predated his administration and dated back to 2010 when state police called on local police agencies to start counting multiple victims.

“Once it was brought to us, we are now working with (Ferguson), and he has even recognized that,” Emanuel said. “I’m very much into not just having accurate data for the sake of it, but for the transparency so we improve every day in making sure we bring safety throughout the city of Chicago.”